Mirny Hope Review

Mirny hope just ended, so let's look back and review.

The short version: Mirny had good, very doable and fun, core gameplay to it, but the way it was done guaranteed good players would complete it early and leave, leaving just bad players behind, making the mode substantially worse the later you played it (with randoms). Good rewards, looking forward to seeing more prem tanks in event rewards, very quick to acquire so no 2 week long grind required for those without that much free time.

The long version:

My experience of the event – Beat the hard immortal within 2 hours of event going live, completed the entire thing in 33 battles, but continued to play, some simply for my own fun, rest to help friends complete their collection. By the time they both finished I had enough keys leftover to buy 51 immortal decals. At the start entirely randoms, then mostly partial platoons, never full 5 mans. Typically came in 1st on damage.

Playable tanks: This time around they put a big focus on ramming, meaning the double was king of damage and survivability, while the hornet could sometimes keep up on damage it had to hide every time something aimed at. This leaves 3 tanks being sub-par and the grenadier being a joke past medium. If it didn't get red needle, it was doing next to nothing to immortal, and even to full pen guards it had to go deep into danger.

Tank equipment: Just like last year, expensive illusion of choice, since there are clearly optimal loadouts for each tank, especially if you want to win. Probably lost 200K from these consumables during the event. Because these cost credits, so many people went into mirny WITHOUT equipment. Stop putting price tags on these things and do it like FL's unlock system, 3 equipped by DEFAULT.

Gameplay Time: Mirny sits at around 18 minutes average. Progress from last year they realised stage 1 on higher difficulties was a waste of time, the progression of the stages felt much better this time around.

Rewards: An actual tier 7 premium tank, and not a joke one either like the gift tanks. Now some might not value this as a good reward (especially if you owned it) but I see it as a great step in the right direction for rewards. The other rewards were fairly good too, solid crew and some other bonuses. However your only incentive to keep playing in Mirny past completion is a decal. I think a small daily would've done wonders to help dilute the "Bad player pool" problem, even if it was just a "Hey, reach the immortal 5 times we'll give you a 100 bonds, or 50BP points, etc." Or it could've used:

Cosmetic rewards: Glaringly obvious omission this time around is you can't get the 3D styles for the tanks. I don't quite understand the reasoning behind that, having them as a 1 of alongside the infinite decals would've helped maintain the player density, yes, there'd have been overlap with the owners of last year's styles, but that's not a big problem, maybe even compensate them with the dark knight style so they actually look like the tanks from the mode!

Collection: We actually got a story this time around instead of vague pictures that told us next to nothing, a nice touch. Probably unappreciated by majority of the community though. The reward icon did not require beating it on hard like last year's mirny did, which I feel kind of diminishes the icon's value, would've liked to see it gated behind that (or have 2 icons like last year)

Accessibility: Unlike last year we get full access, go for as many runs as you want, not even curfew hours. Thank you! The gating last year was poorly thought out given bad players or outright sabotaging players could ruin your DAILY run. Obviously this caused the pacing issue with the playerbase, but I believe it's better to have it open and let limited play time people rush the event when they're free and give small incentives to have completers return.

Actual Gameplay: Good solid fun, heavies could ram every medium, hunter and alpha (They were huge but not heavy), any of the stronger heavies side on. The hornets could quite effectively wear down stuff with it's 5 shot clip into born ready for 10 shots in a row (Was like just briefly having old school bulldog back) Everything was faster this time around, made for a much more active gameplay experience. The boss fight was alright, would've liked to see it actually have variety instead of hedgehog spam, since some team comps deal better with hunters than with hedgehogs, or maybe mosquitos thrown into the little safety corners to give those hiding a big shock. I will say the turbo on the immortal just felt really dumb, I think everybody who didn't know it could do that, died to it the first time, it needed more indication than tiny spurts of engine flame behind the turret that you can't see from the front. Once you knew it could do that you usually avoided it just fine. Module damage is still iffy as hell, I'd much rather have the thunderbolt style of not having to worry about it. I saw a full health double get ammo racked by a guard bot on phase 1. It's why I always brought both repair items, because burning up, ammo rack, so much of the module damage you can take, is basically worse than dying, or will cause you to die.

Sidenote: In the original mirny your vehicles kept getting bloodier and marked as you went through the phases, like you were slipping into insanity, it was a nice touch that I noticed was missing from hope.

In conclusion: The mode was a marked improvement over the original Mirny, the gameplay was better, faster and more fun, with a good challenging boss fight. The rewards were fantastic and a good sign of more to come. However the pacing of it meant a very bad experience the longer you waited to do the event if you weren't platooned, that I believe could've been reduced dramatically with the addition of more small incentives to keep the good players in the mode.